New Player Ship | Difficulty Levels | Linux State of Mind

We know it’s not the time to lean back, yet, as we have not reached our final destination with full release, but we think it is worth looking back at what we have achieved so far: Thanks to your fantastic support here on Kickstarter, plus over 5,000 backers supporting us through our web shop as well as additional funding from our business angels, we were able to release EVERSPACE through Early Access on Steam and Games in Development on GOG.com.

And we are humbled by the amazing feedback from the PC gaming community. Even after Valve changed their review policy on Steam, omitting reviews from users who did not buy the game directly on Steam, 89% positive reviews put a smile on our faces. The few negative comments are mostly about the lack of content – in spite of the fact that EVERSPACE is still in Early Access. Well, we are working on that and with today’s patch there is more stuff coming already. In total, there are over 50 additions, tweaks and bug fixes since the last patch.

A New Player Ship

The biggest addition is the all-new Colonial Scout which you can unlock as an additional player ship. The first thing that you will notice is that the Scout is much smaller than the Colonial Interceptor. Therefore, it features extreme maneuverability and a higher top speed. So you can dash even better through dense asteroid fields or inside large asteroids or structures.

With the Colonial Scout you can sneak up on your enemies and hit them from a distance but better get out fast when things get messy!

You should fly carefully though, as the Scout’s hull is weaker and even a light collision could mean your sudden death. The ship comes with increased sensors, a cloaking device and a long-range shock rifle, amongst others. So it might be your best choice for doing some spec ops runs.

More Difficulty Levels

We have also been listening to your feedback about the current difficulty level. For some players the game felt too hard or did not allow for enough exploration. Whereas for veteran pilots, who already played through the game several times, there seemed to be no challenge anymore. Well, we got good news for both types of players.

The new Easy Level will grant you more time to explore before the interceptors and warships drop in. It also features fewer enemies, jump suppressors, mine fields and natural hazards to deal with and doesn’t punish collisions as harshly. To make your life easier, you will encounter more traders and service stations and find more resources, too! But this comes at a price: You will receive less credits during your runs. Fair enough, don’t you think?

As expected, the other new difficulty level is geared towards the opposite. Even if you think the current difficulty level – the way EVERSPACE is meant to be played – feels like a walk in the park, rest assured on “Hard” that’s no more. To sweeten your pain, not only will you receive more credits but you will also have a higher chance of finding precious blueprints.

Linux State of Mind

We know the promised Linux support is dragging along but we're making progress. We fixed the graphic glitches using OpenGL 4.0 and we see some good performance, too. We also got the mouse controls working in windowed mode but in full screen we still got quite a few issues. It turned out to be a lot harder to port the game to Linux than we originally thought, but rest assured that we are still working on it and hope to get the remaining issues solved, soon.

So all you pilots waiting for Linux, please stay tuned and the rest of you go and check out that Colonial Scout and try out the new difficulty levels. You’ll be discovering a lot more new stuff while playing, too!

Take care, Michael and Your dedicated ROCKFISH Games Team

Shout Out For Lost Ember

This time our shout out goes to Lost Ember from our friendly neighbors at Mooneye Studios, also located in Hamburg, Germany. They cracked their funding goal of €100,000 within less than 48 hours and are currently at 201% with still 20 days to go.

Just watch their lovely trailer about playing a lonely wolf in a beautiful world uncovering the secrets of a fallen civilization and you won’t be wondering why it won the award for Best Games Trailer at Gamescom this year! If you are a fan of artsy games with a great story and lovely visuals along the lines of Journey and Abzu, you should really back this.

Comments

Superbacker

Great news! I've been playing my copy on X1, and I'm really enjoying it, so far. Can't wait to try out new ships and difficulties.
One question: Can you change difficulty as often as you want? (e.g. I want to do a relaxed run for some fun, so I choose easy. The next day, I want to find some rare blueprints, so I switch to hard.) Keep in mind, I don't want to change difficulty in the middle of a run, but I might want to switch it up between sorties. Or will I have to start a new game for each difficulty?